Hacker News: medhir

New comment by medhir in "Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps"

medhir — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 22:39:01 +0000

taps the sign: https://medhir.com/blog/right-to-root-access

New comment by medhir in "Your phone is an entire computer"

medhir — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:58:05 +0000

It’s definitely speculation. Not sure it’s unfounded, the project has built some level of support for all other Apple Silicon Macs: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/overvie...

New comment by medhir in "Your phone is an entire computer"

medhir — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:26:22 +0000

Perhaps it is the way I framed the article, but the core of my argument is not “MacOS on iPhone”.

Yes, I do personally desire that as a niche thing, but the broader point is the nature of a locked bootloader that prevents any third-party software from being loaded / installed without getting an approval from Apple.

Whether the desire is third party apps on iOS outside of Apple-vetted channels, or entirely new operating systems like Linux or MacOS, I’m mainly arguing I should have the right to modify the software however I’d like as the device owner.

New comment by medhir in "Your phone is an entire computer"

medhir — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 19:16:28 +0000

My contention is that the definition of said product and its inherent capabilities is being gatekept by a corporation that would love you to buy both an iPhone and Mac, and treat them as separate. In fact, I do have both already! But I still want rights to modify my iPhone as the computer it is.

The MacBook Neo is a great example of just how fungible these categories are, at least as far as the SoC that runs them is concerned. I paid for my iPhone in full, there is no reasonable justification for why I can’t repurpose it / modify it as I see fit.

New comment by medhir in "Your phone is an entire computer"

medhir — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 19:10:14 +0000

No exactly, Apple is playing in our faces, all while people continue to defend the “differences” of device categories and the subsequent justification of shipping iPhones and iPads with locked bootloaders.

Your phone is an entire computer

medhir — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:02:32 +0000

Article URL: https://medhir.com/blog/your-phone-is-an-entire-computer

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47367568

Points: 367

# Comments: 313

New comment by medhir in "MacBook Neo"

medhir — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:17:51 +0000

Now that MacOS has been demonstrated to run on an A-Series chip, can we please finally get unlocked bootloaders to run MacOS on other iDevices?

New comment by medhir in "Ask HN: Share your personal website"

medhir — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 19:50:17 +0000

https://medhir.com :)

New comment by medhir in "Everyone in Seattle hates AI"

medhir — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 21:11:48 +0000

wow — this hit me hard.

I live in Seattle, and got laid off from Microsoft as a PM in Jan of this year.

Tried in early 2024 to demonstrate how we could leverage smaller models (such as Mixtral) to improve documentation and tailor code samples for our auth libraries.

The usual “fiefdom” politics took over and the project never gained steam. I do feel like I was put in a certain “non-AI” category and my career stalled, even though I took the time to build AI-integrated prototypes and present them to leadership.

It’s hard to put on a smile and go through interviews right now. It feels like the hard-earned skills we bring to the table are being so hastily devalued, and for what exactly?

New comment by medhir in "iPad Pro with M5 chip"

medhir — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 20:52:53 +0000

would buy this in a heartbeat if I could run macOS… it’s such a shame iPad hardware has been so held back by Apple’s lackluster software strategy for this long

New comment by medhir in "Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26"

medhir — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 21:51:54 +0000

Avoiding iOS 26 like the plague for exactly this reason. It feels like Apple decided they need to leverage their GPU silicon for a fancy GUI update without any concern for usability downgrades.

New comment by medhir in "A.I. Is Coming for Culture"

medhir — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 17:55:01 +0000

I definitely understand the intention, it still just feels a bit intellectually lazy to me.

Maybe it’s just my own aversion to using AI for creative work coming through… I can’t get myself to even add an AI generated image to a personal blog post.

New comment by medhir in "A.I. Is Coming for Culture"

medhir — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 16:47:47 +0000

something deeply ironic about this piece using an AI generated video at the top of the page.

like, of course AI is coming for culture if even the New Yorker, a very well known American cultural magazine, is willing to leverage it to avoid paying an artist to create a short video.

New comment by medhir in "Claude for Chrome"

medhir — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 02:58:49 +0000

True, I wasn’t thinking very deeply when I wrote this comment… local models indeed are prone to the same exploits.

Regardless, giving a remote API access to a browser seems insane. Having had a chance to reflect, I’d be very wary of providing any LLM access to take actions with my personal computer. Sandbox the hell out of these things.

New comment by medhir in "Claude for Chrome"

medhir — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 19:22:56 +0000

Personally, the only way I’m going to give an LLM access to a browser is if I’m running inference locally.

I’m sure there’s exploits that could be embedded into a model that make running locally risky as well, but giving remote access to Anthropic, OpenAI, etc just seems foolish.

Anyone having success with local LLMs and browser use?

New comment by medhir in "Blacksky grew to millions of users without spending a dollar"

medhir — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 17:11:18 +0000

This is pretty much exactly what Bluesky / Blacksky offer in the form of custom feeds. Gives users the ability to choose whatever type of feed they want, algorithm curated or not.

And if you’re unhappy with the selection, you’re free to create your own.

New comment by medhir in "Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android"

medhir — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 17:08:22 +0000

100% in alignment with this! Direct quote from the end of the post I linked:

“In the broader conversation of right to repair regulations, we also need to be thinking about a "right to root access" for computing devices.” :)

New comment by medhir in "Blacksky grew to millions of users without spending a dollar"

medhir — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:39:40 +0000

I agree there’s a ton of benefits from fully disconnecting. I’ve had periods completely off social media which were quite blissful, though I’ve always ended up coming back to some extent due the social aspects you described.

Given the choice between apps controlled by large corporations preying on attention vs decentralized protocols, I’d much rather have the latter.

I think having examples of apps that don’t demand one’s attention so fiercely, or provide better options for tailoring “the algorithm,” are an important step towards ending the mass social media addiction society is currently experiencing.

New comment by medhir in "Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android"

medhir — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 03:32:46 +0000

This is a great point. Not sure if it’s possible, would be great if there was some way to reclaim the notion of installing software as a general practice, regardless of whether a computer is “mobile” or “desktop”.

Like people still download software packages from the web on Windows, MacOS, and Linux… right? Maybe hard to grasp for the kids that grew up with tablets with no notion of a file system, idk

New comment by medhir in "Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android"

medhir — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 03:18:33 +0000

Every day we stray farther from the premise that we should be allowed to install / modify software on the computers we own.

Will once again re-up the concept of a “right to root access”, to prevent big corps from pulling this bs over and over again: https://medhir.com/blog/right-to-root-access